The present application relates to semiconductor technology, and more particularly to a semiconductor structure including a photonic light generating device that is located on a semiconductor substrate and that can be readily integrated with other photonic devices as well as electronic devices on the same semiconductor substrate.
Integration of electronic (e.g., transistors, capacitors, resistors) and photonic (e.g., modulators, lasers, photodetectors, waveguides) devices on a single integrated chip using a standard semiconductor process has been actively pursued to provide fast optical communication links. Such integration, which may be referred to as a monolithic integration, has not been demonstrated for a high performance and stable photonic light emitting device, i.e., laser, on a Si substrate. In prior art monolithic integration, photonic light emitting devices are provided that have a large number of defects, and/or a high threshold current and/or a high energy consumption, and/or a low modulation speed. Moreover, prior art photonic light emitting devices are not compatible with complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices.
As such, there is a need for providing a monolithic integration scheme that is capable of providing a photonic light emitting device that overcomes all of the drawbacks mentioned above, yet exhibits high performance and good stability, on a portion of a semiconductor substrate, while maintaining other portions of the same semiconductor substrate for forming electronic devices as well as other photonic devices.